


Momentum

by randers1



Category: Chicago PD (TV)
Genre: F/M, Upstead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-18
Updated: 2020-07-18
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:35:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25357840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/randers1/pseuds/randers1
Summary: Hailey shares part of her past with Jay.
Relationships: Jay Halstead & Hailey Upton, Jay Halstead/Hailey Upton
Comments: 11
Kudos: 96





	Momentum

**Author's Note:**

> A one shot set sometime in Season 8. I don't own any of the characters. Warning, some mentions of abuse.

They exited the store having checked and copied the security footage of a suspect in their case. The two had taken just a few steps when Hailey slammed to a stop. It took Jay a few seconds to realize he was walking alone and looked back to see her unmoving.

“Hailey? C’mon, what’re you doing, we gotta go.” He walked back to her. She stood still, uncaring or unaware of the people who grumbled and jostled past her. “Hey.” She was staring across the street, looking like she was trapped somewhere between absolute fury and complete terror.

He said her name louder, looking across the street to see what she saw, and saw nothing amiss. Bright sunshine, people walking on the sidewalks, crossing the street now that the sign turned to Walk.

Concern brewing, he leaned in and said her name calmly, close to her ear and still got nothing in return. The emotion from a moment ago had been erased from her features. Now she was a blank canvas, her face betraying absolutely nothing. He swallowed and took her by the arm in an attempt to move her, at first pulling on dead weight, before her body gave in and moved with him to the doorway of a closed bookstore. He turned her so she faced only him.

“Hailey,--okay, you’re scaring me. What’s going on?” He bent a bit, putting his face in hers and said her name once more. “Hailey!”

The movement had helped her to unlock herself from the place she’d gone. The place she used to go willingly and often when she was a child, even as a teenager. The place of nowhere. She blinked and focused on the green eyes peering at her, felt the firm pressure of his hands on her shoulders, felt the roll of his thumbs as they dug deep in to her tendons.

“What was that? Are you okay?”

“Yeah, Sorry ,I’m good.” She nodded, swallowing, her voice raspy. “But—can we go?” Her heart was beating hard and fast, and if she was going to cry she didn’t want to do it out here in the open. She glanced back at the street behind them before turning back to Jay and sighing. Her hand spread across her eyes as her thumb and pointer finger wiped at the tears that were gathering there.

“Yeah, yeah,” Jay was in go mode, his hand on her back as her head dipped down and he quickly guided her down a side street and back to the truck. Now they sat inside of it and the quiet was a weight on Hailey’s chest.

His voice was soft as he turned to her. “You good?”

She blew out a long breath and closed her eyes briefly. “Yeah,” her voice timbre matched his. Wait. She didn’t want to lie, to pretend. Not with Jay. So she changed her answer, accompanying it with an annoyed-with-herself eye roll and admitted the truth. “No.” she smiled facetiously, then, “Sorry..that was…across the street,... I saw my dad.” She shook her head, trying to clear it. “It was…It was just unexpected.”

Jay nodded as understanding washed over him. _fuck_ “Been a while, huh?”

Her bottom lip rolled inward as her top teeth bit down on to it. “Yeah.”

Jay didn’t want to push too hard. This was definitely an area of Hailey’s life where the Do Not Enter signs were plentiful and lit up in blinking neon lights. “When’s the last time you saw him?”

She breathed a quiet snort. “Um—I don’t know.” She tried for another smile, trying to keep things light, from getting too bogged down in her memories, in this topic. “Months.”

He noticed the vagueness of her answer and gave her space. He was quiet, allowing her the time to settle her thoughts before talking to her.

His phone buzzed. Jay pulled it out and read the text from Ruzek, questioning their location and asking if they’d gotten anything from the store security footage.

Hailey glanced over and saw the text as well, watching her partner as he typed out a reply. He still hadn’t spoken when he put the phone back in its holder on the dashboard.

She scratched absently at her forehead with her thumbnail. “We should get back.” She adjusted herself in the seat, offering a tight smile to him beside her. “I’m good.”

Jay blew out a breath and leaned back in his seat. “Nah, we’ll hold here for a bit.”

“Jay,” she admonished, raising a hand in questioning. “We need to go.”

“Hailey,” he admonished right back. “Take a minute. I forwarded the footage to Adam. He and Kev can run through it and update the team, it’s fine. I told him we’d be back in about an hour, not three days from now.” he chided. “We can sit here or we can drive. Your call.”

She stared at him, unsure of what to think. Sometimes she realized she didn’t give Jay enough credit. She knew he knew her, got her, but there were times she was surprised at the depth at which he did. Like now, when he took her needs in to consideration before she did. On the other hand, she thought, that might be what she needed, to take some time and calm down and get her head straight, but what she _wanted_ was to forget about it, at least for now. To bury it with all the other memories that she chose to filter through and deposit down deep. A few lived where she could get them but there weren’t many.

She understood what he was doing for her but she didn’t want time to sit. If they drove she could at least focus on the scenery.

“Drive.” She knew her tone was slightly clipped and she offered a small smile as way of an apology.

“Copy that.” Jay put the truck in gear and pulled on to the street, heading toward the expressway.

“Y’know there’s gonna be construction…”

He snorted. “Find me an expressway in Chicago where there’s not.”

Hailey chuckled and accepted that, settling in her seat. She turned on the radio and let the sound of the music fill the silence for a while. They’d been driving beside Lake Michigan for ten minutes when traffic started to slow. From slow, they went to a crawl and eventually came to a full stop.

Jay caught Hailey’s smirk and put up a finger, refusing to look at her. “Don’t say it.”

She put her own hand up to him in return. “Not saying a word.” She shook her head and laughed lightly, her eyes going out to the water.

A few minutes passed as they sat at the standstill, the truck in now in park, before he turned the radio down and turned to her. “So you want to talk about it?”

She pursed her lips, knowing exactly what he we meant. “Not really.” The words came quickly as she sighed and turned her body toward him.

“Hailey,” He said her name softly. “If you don’t want to that’s fine, I’m not gonna push you. But you looked,” he looked at her, his eyebrows raised, “ _really_ freaked out back there.”

She looked back at him, meeting his eyes, and her lips flattened.

He continued. “Look, if you’re good to go back to work and move on with the day, then that’s fine. But if not… we're not going to have to time to talk later. You’ve going undercover tonight.--I want to make sure you’re straight before we go in.”

She nodded, sighing, lips pursed as she tried to figure out if she could talk about it and if so how much she wanted to say. This was their thing. Not in a car per se, but talking things out. The location didn’t matter as much as the talking and the connection between them as they supported each other.

She blew out a long breath and put her eyes on the dashboard. “It’s probably been…almost a year. …last summer…since I’ve seen him,” she shrugged lightly. Nearly a year but she still remembered every detail. She chanced a sidelong look at him and saw what she thought she would, him turned toward her, green eyes right on her, fully listening.

She began to speak in clipped sentences, her lips meeting after each period. If she was going to talk about this it was going to have to be at an emotional distance.

“I’d gone home…my mom and I were in the kitchen, just talking—not about anything important. She was asking about me and the job and…” she trailed off for a second, her eyes darting out her window, then to her lap. “He was looking for something, something in a cabinet and he couldn’t find it. I know he’d said her name a few times, asked about wherever the thing was. But we were talking and she kept putting him off.” Her lips twisted a bit. 

“It all happened really fast. He’d been drinking, no real surprise, and was angry. Grabbed a glass, threw it. Hard.” She grabbed for some bravery by looking quickly at Jay. His concern wasn’t lost on her.

“Barely missed her but when it hit the wall, the glass just…” She didn’t finish with words but used her hands to show the pieces went everywhere, lost in the memory of the shards hitting her and her mom as they’d sat at the kitchen table. “Always had a killer arm,” she huffed at her attempt at the bad joke. She chewed the inside of her cheek, mulling over how best to tell the next part. She let out a deep sigh.

Jay watched intently as her fingers subconsciously ghosted over a cluster of small indentations beside her eyebrow before rubbing her eyes and continuing.

She told Jay the rest, trying desperately to sound as factual as she could: Her dad was right there in front of them, yanking her mom up out of her seat hard by her arm, yelling about he shouldn’t have to go hunting for the things he wanted in his own damn house, that she should have at least gotten up off her ass and helped. Hailey jumped up, shoving herself between them. Even with her police training though, the personal nature of the situation got the better of her and she found herself once again being pushed roughly to the side by her father.

Her mother was trying not to cry, telling Hailey she was fine, it was no big deal, that she should sit down, calm down. “Hailey, maybe you should go.” She’d looked to her husband for a second, who gruffly let go of her arm, muttering a ‘For fuck’s sake.” He walked out to the back porch and stood, his back to them, easily seen from the kitchen window.

Her mother came to her, held her face in her hands, smoothed her hair back. She grabbed a napkin from the table and dabbed at the blood from the cuts scattered across Hailey’s cheek and forehead. Hailey hadn’t even noticed.

“Mom,” she whispered, grabbing on to her arms. “Come on, come home with me.”

“Don’t be so dramatic, Hailey.” Her mom tried to laugh. “He’ll say he’s sorry. He’s just upset.”

Hailey took a step backward, letting go, her forehead furrowed and her eyes squinting. “Don’t be so dramatic? He threw a _glass_ at you.”

“I really should organize the cabinets better… You know how he is. He didn’t mean it.”

Hailey’s mouth had sealed shut as she tried to control her anger. There was nothing she could do or say that would make a difference except to make things worse.

Her head began to shake on its own, short, fast swivels. The words came just as fast. “I can’t do this anymore. Mom,” she looked out the window, saw her father turning and walking back toward the door. “if this is the life you want, I can’t help you, I can’t be a part of it. But if you change your mind, _ever_ , call me. _Please_ call me.”

Her mother had simply stood there, looking as though she felt sorry for _Hailey_. And Hailey couldn’t take it. Her father was back in the kitchen and she stalked over to him, unsure of what she wanted to say—there was so much. A quick backward glance to her mom and she was reminded that it wasn’t worth it. Nothing good would come of her saying anything. It never had.

Her father sneered down at her. “Hmph, not such a big shot after all, huh?”

She was frozen, breathing hard and staring at him, anger boiling over with nowhere to go.

A smirk crossed his face and he moved quickly, postured as though he was about to backhand her. To Hailey’s horror, she flinched. 

“Hailey,” her mother hissed. “You should go.”

“Yeah,” he continued to stare her down. “Listen to your mother, HaileyBug.” 

She looked up at her father, refusing to back down, waiting just a few extra seconds, standing her ground.

"Always were stupid-stubborn," he reminded her as he sidestepped to the refrigerator and grabbed a beer. He opened it and took a drink, watching Hailey seethe and try to keep her composure. He huffed a bit as he walked past her, out of the room, raising his bottle and giving her one last comment before he was gone. "Have a good one.... _officer_."

Her lips twisted as she shoved her feelings down and looked back at her mother who was using the blood dotted napkin she’d used on Hailey to start gathering up the broken glass.

With a sad grimace, Hailey stepped forward, grabbed another napkin, and started to help.

“Hailey,” her mother’s voice was soft. “I got it. You really should go.” She flicked her eyes toward the doorway her husband had gone through. “He needs some time to calm down.”

She stopped mid-napkin swipe and stood, looking at her mom. It took her a moment before she nodded in somber agreement. Her mom, no matter how much she loved her children, and Hailey knew that she did, had always chosen her husband over them. This time was no different.

“That was it,” she told Jay with another small shrug. “I haven’t seen either of them since.”

“Not even your mom?” His voice was soft.

She shook her head. “I can’t Jay. I can't look back. It used to be that…every now and then, I’d give in. Sometimes to my mom’s messages, sometimes it was my own guilt, and I’d go back. But every time.” She took a breath. “ _Every_ time it ended the same.” She wouldn’t tell Jay that some of those times ended with her actually taking the backhand from her father.

"I had to choose, them or me. They're drowning in their...dynamic. And when I was there, I'd get pulled down too. I couldn't take it, not anymore.” she looked at him, her voice small, her eyes wide and bright. Jay imagined her face as a child, looking up to someone and wanting them to help her. He reached for her hand and drew slow circles on it with his thumb.

“Like I said, I was just surprised.” She smiled, knowing it wasn’t really worth it to fake it with him but it was ingrained in her. “It was a good idea to drive..... I’m okay-- Really.” She leaned her head against her fist, her elbow propped on the car door.

“Hey,” his voice was firm but still gentle. A quick look forward told him that the cars up ahead were starting to move. He let go of her hand to gently take her chin and turn it back toward him. “No. You’re not.” He thought for a second. “But you will be. You’ve got us, the team. You’ve got me.”

He leaned forward, a hand snaking behind her neck to pull her toward him for a gentle kiss.

She smiled and huffed out a small chuckle as she pulled back. Hailey took his hand in both of hers and held it in her lap. “I know.” She smiled warmly at him, looked from her hand and his, up to his eyes and held them there for a moment before flicking toward the movement out of her periphery. “Traffic’s moving” she whispered.

Jay hated the loss of the feeling but turned back to the traffic, directing the truck back toward the 21st.

Hailey was quiet the entire ride back, thoughts of all kinds swirling around her brain.

When Jay parked the car and turned the engine off, she grabbed his shoulder before he could get out. "Hold on a sec?" She fully turned in her seat to face him. "Thank you."

He chuckled, unsure what she was doing. "For what?"

"For the time...for the talk...for being you." She leaned forward and kissed him softly, then deeply. "For being an amazing kisser." she teased, mumbling in to his lips. He smiled into hers and reciprocated eagerly before groaning and pushing her shoulders back a bit, breaking contact.

"You know we're in the lot, right?" he questioned, looking at her seriously, wishing they were instead at his or her place. He wiped at his bottom lip with his thumb.

Hailey sighed and drew out a 'Yeah" and turned her head to look at the building. "Consider that a preview though...a thankview if you will." she groaned at her own joke and he joined her.

"You. Are a horrible joke teller," He'd teased her about this before. "It's a good thing you're cute. C'mere, one more..." He reached for her, kissing her again before they'd need to head back to the bullpen. They had a late night ahead of them and neither were sure when they'd have the opportunity to be alone.

When they broke apart, she smiled genuinely at Jay, comforted by her present with him. She turned to open the cab door when he spoke.

"Hey,"

She turned her head to hear him.

"I love you." He chin lifted once, his tone serious.

Her grin spread over her face, dimples on full display and her face brightened as she nodded. "I know." She scooted toward him one more time, crawling across the seat to him, still smiling. "I love you too." She kissed him quickly before they both got out and walked into the building together.

Hailey's past was behind her; She knew it might not always stay there but it didn't matter. Beside her now, and for the foreseeable future in front of her, she had Jay. And that was enough. That was plenty.


End file.
